by Henry Porter
Firefly
Also By
Also by Henry Porter
Remembrance Day
A Spy’s Life
Empire State
Brandenburg
The Dying Light
The Master of the Fallen Chairs
Title
Copyright
This ebook edition first published in 2018 by
Quercus Editions Ltd
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © 2018 Henry Porter
The moral right of Henry Porter to be
identified as the author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any
information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
EBOOK ISBN 978 1 78747 051 4
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
businesses, organizations, places and events are
either the product of the author’s imagination
or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or
locales is entirely coincidental.
Ebook by CC Book Production
Cover design © 2018 Henry Steadman Design
www.quercusbooks.co.uk
Dedication
For my brother, Michael
Contents
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Prologue
His head went under. Seawater filled his nose and mouth; his eyes opened and he saw the black depths of the ocean below him. A moment later something knocked his legs – maybe part of the wreckage, he couldn’t tell. All he knew was that he was going to die. Then it came again. This time there was a distinct shove on his buttocks and whatever it was that moved with such intent beneath him lifted him up so his head and shoulders came out of the water and he was able to grab a plastic toggle on the section of the rubber craft that was still inflated.
He clung to the toggle and retched and blinked and blinked again.
The sea was very strange to the boy, with its violence and the salty water that stung his eyes and the gash on his head that had been made with the handle of a gun by one of the men when they were being herded onto the raft. He rubbed his eyes with the knuckle of his free hand and cast around. There was nothing to see in the dawn, not even the shadow of the coast they’d spotted a few minutes before the boat had begun to sink.
The waves were getting bigger in the wind that had got up at first light, bringing with it the smell of woodsmoke from the shore. They had taken this as a good sign: if they could smell the fires on the beach, they weren’t far from their destination and safety. But that was before the front section suddenly deflated and water poured in, and the people panicked and grabbed the young children that were huddled in the centre, and the section that remained inflated began to rock uncontrollably. Then the boat flipped over and they were all thrown into the sea.
The screams died the instant the people hit the water, and now there was nothing except the sound of the waves.
He turned his head as a particularly large wave raised him and the wreckage, and he found himself looking down the slope of water at a bright blue life jacket that was spinning round in the trough of the wave. He knew he must get to that life jacket, because the orange one he’d bought on the street had split open at the collar, revealing nothing but the wads of paper it had been stuffed with. The blue life jacket became his only objective. He began paddling furiously with his free arm, but realised he couldn’t drag the whole weight of the collapsed rubber boat through the water. He didn’t know water – he had no idea about what you could and couldn’t do in it. Until two days before he’d never seen the sea, nor anything like it, still less been plunged into its shocking cold immensity and had to swim for his life. On the few occasions he had swum, his foot had danced along the bottom of the pool as his arms thrashed atop the water; and he had fooled nobody, not even his doting father.
A few seconds later, an even bigger wave came along, and this one seemed to pause at a great height to contemplate him before crashing down and obliterating all his senses in a foaming rush that sucked at his body and tried to tear him from the wreckage. But he clung on with all his strength, and when he blinked the water from his eyes he saw that the blue life jacket was right in front of him. He took hold of it and dragged it towards himself, realising in that moment that it was much heavier than he had expected. He spun it round and found himself staring into an inflated hood and at the face of a very small child, no more than a year old, whose eyes and mouth were wide open in disbelief.
He was cross that the life jacket would be no use to him, but instinctively he wrapped his free arm around the blue bundle and wedged it between himself and the rubber dinghy so the sea could not drag the baby away. And there he remained, rising and falling in the waves, with the baby’s face a few centimetres away, staring at him with intense concentration. Every time the boy felt his fingers grow numb on the toggle, he swapped hands; and sometimes, when he thought that he could not hang on any longer and he should give himself and the baby up to the sea that seemed so desperately to crave their lives, he felt a shove from below and was pushed up a little and held above the water for a few seconds, and the baby looked even more surprised. It was as though the ocean floor rose to take the strain from his arms.
How long they were out there he had no idea. Sometimes he tried to play with the baby, popping his eyes and rubbing his nose against the baby’s face, and the baby even managed to gurgle a laugh. The baby became his purpose, for he knew their fates were locked together: if he could keep the baby alive, God would allow him to survive too, and they would live long and happy lives, and maybe one day they would become friends. But he was very tired, and so cold that he could not think, and he allowed himself once or twice to close his eyes – just for a few seconds – and to dream of his home and his three sisters. And when he did, all sorts of strange things started to happen in his mind and he began to believe that the sea was just part of a dream. And once, just before he heard the roar of the two jet skis come out of nowhere, he imagined a monster with an enormous beak rising out of the water beside him to search his face in wonderment, as if trying to fathom why there were so many bodies in the sea and what a boy was doing floating there with a tiny baby.
One
Paul Samson leaned back in the desk chair used by his mother in the upstairs office of her restaurant, Cedar, and waited. Below him, Cedar’s kitchens were at full tilt, producing food for the most privileged Arab customers in London. He was always content in this room, the place where his mother and father used to sit opposite each other at desks p
ushed together, she running the restaurant and he his import and export business. His gaze moved across a wall of photographs – his mother Marina’s shrine to the family’s early life in Lebanon, and more especially to his father, Wally. His eyes came to rest on the black and white picture of them taken in Beirut in 1967. The photograph was famous in the diasporas of both their families – spread across the globe since the Lebanese civil war – for its natural glamour and the memories it evoked of old Beirut. Marina, in a bold floral swing skirt, was on one foot as she hugged her new husband, who in a light suit and open collar leaned against a Buick sedan and, with cigar in his hand, saluted who knows what – the city, his new young wife, his good fortune? The photograph might easily have appeared in one of the fashion magazines of the time, and yet it was just a snap taken by one of the city’s street photographers. Wally had paid a very few Lebanese pounds for the framed photograph to be delivered almost immediately to the café where they were celebrating their marriage. This was the only photographic record of their wedding, and there wasn’t a day when his mother did not look up at it, smile and mouth an endearment to the long dead love of her life.
There was knock on the door and Ivan, one of the two maître d’s at Cedar, half opened it and showed his face. ‘He’s here,’ he said.
‘I can see,’ said Samson, glancing at one of the CCTV monitors.
‘You need a table? It’s pretty tight tonight – full house.’
‘No, show him up – and ask what he wants to drink. Thanks.’
Samson studied the screen. He saw a tall, dowdy individual, with a brush of fine grey hair, dark rings under his eyes and a stoop. A second, much younger man was waiting by the bar with his hands folded in front of him. Samson tracked the tall man on various screens as he climbed the staircase and proceeded along the corridor over Cedar’s kitchens, where his mother, at the age of seventy-two, was supervising her staff like a general.
‘Can we do something about your bodyguard, or whatever he is?’ said Samson as Ivan showed his guest in. ‘I don’t want him spooking our customers. Most are from the embassies and you showing up here like this will already have been noticed.’
The man said to Ivan, ‘You can tell my friend to wait in the car – I’ll be quite all right here.’
He turned to Samson and put out his hand. ‘Peter Nyman.’
‘I know – Special Operations Directorate.’
‘Something like that.’ A dreary smile flickered across his face. ‘Though we try to avoid that kind of acronym.’
Samson gestured him towards a chair, but remained standing.
‘It’s quite a place, Mr Samson,’ said Nyman, looking along the line of monitors. ‘I’ve long wanted to dine here.’
Samson smiled. ‘You’re welcome anytime, Mr Nyman. I occasionally see people from the Office. With our clientele, it’s hardly surprising.’
‘You serve alcohol?’
‘Yes, the finest Lebanese wines. Do you like Château Musar? We have the prized ’78 and ’82 vintages.’
‘Out of my range,’ Nyman said, sniffing. ‘I’m grateful to you for seeing me and I’ll come straight to the point, if I may. We were wondering if you’d come back – just for one operation.’
Samson threw his head back and laughed. ‘You slung me out. Cashiered like a bloody crook, I was.’
Nyman closed his eyes and pinched the top of his nose. ‘I gathered it was the amount involved. These were big bets – very big bets indeed.’
‘And my private business. I opened my books and we went through it all. I showed a much greater return than any of you make on share portfolios. What’s the difference?’
‘These were horses,’ said Nyman.
‘You know how many bets I’ve had in the last year?’ Samson said, now rather enjoying Nyman’s discomfort.
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Take a wild guess.’
‘I really wouldn’t know – maybe thirty? Fifty?’
‘Seven. Five wins and two that didn’t perform as well as I expected. Hardly compulsive behaviour, is it? You see, this kind of gambling is not so much about risk as patience and good judgement.’ Without turning, he pointed to his right, to a photograph of Wally Samson taken in 1989. ‘My father spent his whole life looking for reasons not to make business investments. I spend my time looking for reasons why I shouldn’t make a bet. It’s how I’ve made money.’
‘You were betting in tens of thousands,’ Nyman murmured.
Ivan returned with sparkling water and two glasses. Nyman fished the lemon out of his glass and looked around. Samson remembered the man’s remote, disapproving presence at one or two meetings, though he had never heard him speak and did not know precisely what his job was. He was part of the scenery, and those in Samson’s intake knew better than to enquire too closely about his role. Besides, Nyman wasn’t seen in the Office much – a migratory figure who was said to be often in the United States and Canada.
Nyman sighed and put down his glass. ‘Frankly I don’t give a fuck what you do with your money, Mr Samson. I was aware that you were an excellent intelligence officer and a loss to the service when you went.’ Another insipid smile. ‘So, can we talk on the basis of my distant admiration for you?’
‘I always insist upon it,’ said Samson.
‘I want you to come back for a particular job – one you’re especially suited for. I’m afraid I can’t discuss the details here, but I would like you to hear me out later this evening and then give me a very quick answer. We’re against the clock on this one and I need a decision almost immediately.’
‘I’m not sure I want or need to come back,’ said Samson, returning to the chair behind the desk. ‘My view of the people at the top hasn’t changed. The Chief was like some bloody mother superior.’
‘You weren’t alone in that view,’ said Nyman. ‘He’s gone on to better things at an Oxford college and will enjoy the talk at high table, no doubt. As you know, we have a new chief – Hugh Fairbrother – and things have changed front of house and are much improved backstage. I’m not asking you to rejoin the cult, but I want you to consider this one very important assignment. I wouldn’t be here, practically on my knees, if I didn’t think it were important.’
Samson pulled his cuffs from his suit jacket. ‘I don’t know a lot about you, but I don’t imagine you have ever been on your knees.’
Nyman looked him up and down, taking in the tailored suit and Samson’s handmade shoes. ‘Are you working here tonight?’
‘Good Lord no – my mother has more sense than to employ me. She runs this on her own and, believe me, there’s no one in London who does a better job.’
‘But you are working, aren’t you?’
‘The odd assignment for Hendricks-Harp, right here in Curzon Street; a bit of travel; the occasional enquiry – nothing that keeps me away from London or the racecourse.’
‘Really?’ From his inside pocket, Nyman drew a photograph of a bearded man in sunglasses, an Arab keffiyeh and scarred leather bomber jacket and pushed it across the table to Samson. ‘Recognise this individual? It’s you, of course, on the Turkey–Syria border about seven or eight weeks ago.’
Samson didn’t react, just ran his finger round the rim of his glass and gave Nyman a pleasant smile.
‘I’m just making the point that this particular job has kept you from the racecourse for weeks on end, and that you are still very much in the game.’ He paused ‘What were you doing there?’
‘It’s a private matter – utterly legal of course, but very private.’
‘That’s not what we think – I mean about the legality,’ said Nyman.
‘What you think is your business. I’m afraid I just can’t tell you about it.’
‘In that part of the world, illicit shipments over those particular borders usually involves one of three commodities – drugs, arma
ments or fuel.’
‘Check with Hendricks-Harp. I’m not at liberty to discuss it. And, by the way, it’s no business of the British government.’ Samson’s eyes met Nyman’s with an unflinching gaze, although the good humour in his face did not fade.
‘I’ve been in touch with Macy Harp,’ said Nyman, retrieving the photograph. ‘We overlapped for a few years at the Office, you know. He told me a story about artefacts being rescued from the iconoclastic barbarians of IS.’
‘Right.’
‘And you were responsible for seeing their safe conveyance over the border to people who would look after them until peace came. It’s an operation financed by parties who are not thieves but people with genuine interest in Syria’s heritage. And you were the main man in this operation, is that right?
‘If Macy says so,’ said Samson.
Nyman nodded as if to acknowledge he wasn’t going to get anywhere. ‘Anyway, I told Macy that we were on to something important, which meant he listened and agreed that you were the right person to approach.’
‘I don’t work for Macy Harp. I’m a free agent.’
‘I know that, but you are close and you listen to him. I don’t think I could get you to hear me out unless Macy asked you.’ He stopped and looked at his watch. A few seconds later Samson’s phone began to vibrate in his inside pocket. He took it out and saw a familiar number.
‘Fancy that – it’s Macy,’ he said to Nyman with a sarcastic look before answering the call.
The next couple of minutes were spent discussing the upset in the second race at Newmarket and the breeding of the winner in the fourth. The turf was still the first interest of the Cold War warrior who’d set up Hendricks-Harp with a colleague from Germany’s BND in ’97, and created one of the biggest private intelligence companies in Europe.
‘I believe you are playing host to a friend of mine,’ said Harp eventually. ‘He’s your typical service ghoul, but it would be helpful if you’d give him an hour or two, old cock. Just listen to his story. That’s all he’s asking.’
